


A character study of Farren Breakwood

by DruidX



Series: The Vexations of Elo O'Toreguarde [5]
Category: Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World
Genre: Gen, Kidnapping, long conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26289562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DruidX/pseuds/DruidX
Summary: Farren has been kidnapped. Aveskamp, the officer charged with locating him, sits down with Farren's Duty Watch Partner, Elowyn, to discuss Officer Breakwood.Set back in Elo's early Watch days.
Relationships: Elowyn O'Toreguarde & Farren Breakwood
Series: The Vexations of Elo O'Toreguarde [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902259
Kudos: 1





	A character study of Farren Breakwood

**Author's Note:**

> This was intended to be an exploration of Farren's character through the eyes of both Aveskamp and Elowyn.

The little room was dim. One lantern hung suspended above a plain table, the other on the wall by the door. Both cast a feeble glow over the woman and man, sat either side of the table.  
"Tell me about Constable Breakwood?" the man said, running long, elegant fingers down a page in his notebook.   
"We are wasting time," growled the woman opposite. "We need to be out there, Aveskamp. Looking for him!" She thrust a small hand at the direction of the door.  
"And we will," the man said in carefully measured tones, looking at the irate woman from under pale lashes, "but I need you to tell me everything you know about him first."  
"Why!" she said, slamming her fist on the table. "He's not lost, he was taken! Every moment we spend here is another moment that bastard has him!"  
"You think I don't know that?" Aveskamp said harshly, elegant fingers curling under to form white-knuckled fists. "He's my friend too, Constable o'Toreguarde. So the sooner you start talking is the sooner I can go look for him."  
"If he's your friend then why do you need me to tell you about him?" O'Toreguarde asked, raking a hand through her hazelnut hair. "This is pointless."  
"Because he's your partner. Because you've spent nearly every waking moment with him for the past two months and I haven't. Because I'm the tracker here, and I say I need you to! Ititia's sake, Elowyn, just talk to me!" Aveskamp said, slamming a fist on the table.

The little woman raked a hand through her hair again, locking both hands behind her head for a moment before growling and bringing them back onto the table in front of her.  
"Fine! What do you want me to tell you?" she asked, with a confused little shrug. "What am I supposed to say? Hm? He's a long streak of piss who tells bad puns and smokes worse roll-ups."  
Aveskamp leant back, shoulders relaxing as he tucked a stray strand of straw-golden hair behind a pointed ear. "Just tell me about him," the elf said. "What's he do off-duty, where's he like to eat? What's his favourite colour?"  
O'Toregurade scrubbed at her face, fingers coming to rest pinched at the bridge of her nose.  
"Gods," she said, "I don't know."  
"Yes. You do. Think!" Aveskamp said, leaning forward to stare at her.  
"He... ah, gods..." The little woman flicked a hand in the air. "He smokes Baron brand tobacco, the shit stuff in the yellow packets. Except if he gets a little extra in his pay, and then he'll splash out and buy a wee pouch of Tiger Stripe that's come all the way from Bei-Han." O'Toreguarde gave that confused little shrug again.  
"Keep going," Aveskamp said, jotting something down in his notebook. The halfling rolled her eyes.  
"Ah..." she shook her head and looked at the wall for inspiration. "He'll tell you his favourite food is my Mam's spiced apple cake, but that's a lie; it's actually Isa Combs's Snake stew, what they serve in the Scholar."  
"Oh? What makes you think that?"  
"He'll turn down cake; he never turns down that stew," O'Toreguarde said, then paused, thinking. "It's also possible he's got a thing for Isa Combes herself," she added with a little half-smile. Aveskamp snorted as he scribbled.  
"Sounds more like our Farren," he said. "This is good. Keep going."  
O'Toreguarde let out an exasperated little huff. "His favourite colour is a, a deep blue, the colour the sky goes on a clear summer's day, when dusk is closer to night than not. He prefers cider over beer, and Cat's Piss brandy over both, but'll take either if it's in the offing. He goes to the Skiving Scholar most nights we have off, 'cept for every third Saturday when they run cage fights over at The Pit."  
"To gamble, I assume?"   
O'Toregurade shook her head. "Nah. To fight. Sort of. I mean," she amended when Aveskamp looked at her, concerned, "he says it's to keep his oar in. He did undercover work, y'know? Still got contacts don't know him as a Watchman. So, he shows up occasionally. Throws a few punches, gets his face caved in to keep in good stead. Has a beer or five, shoots the shit with 'em, and learns the breeze. Y'know? 'Keeping up with the Smiths' he calls it."  
Aveskamp stared at her for a long moment. "I see," he said, writing something down. "Keep going."  
"Gods, what's there left to tell?" O'Toreguarde snapped. "I've told you where he hangs out, what he likes to drink and smoke and eat, who he wants to bang... What more can I say?" 

She pushed the chair out and rose.  
"Sit. Down. Officer."  
"No. You know why? Because it's my damn fault he got took, and I'm going to go find him while you ponce around asking useless questions!"  
"Why?" Aveskamp asked, leaning back in his chair.  
"What?"   
The elf gestured loosely with a hand. "Why is it your fault?" he asked, before folding the hand back into his lap.  
"Because!" O'Toreguarde snaps. "Because I should have been quicker, should have been more adept." She gripped the back of her chair.  
"Alright," Aveskamp said. "Walk me through it. What happened?"  
O'Toreguarde sighed, running a hand over her face. "We were in pursuit of a suspect. We chased him through Strongmount, and down to the warehouses at the back of Silver Hooks, when he grabbed a kid. I guess we underestimated just how desperate and stupid the perp was... Anyway, he vanishes into a warehouse, so of course we've gotta slow down, clear each area before proceeding. We split up, cover more ground, and it's fine until I get near the top level. There's a ruckus, and I rush up to see the perp with a blade at Farren's throat in one hand, and a rope in the other, tied to the kid, who's dangling off the crane jib. Perp takes one look at me and says 'Make your choice Copper - your partner or the girl' and let's go the rope. Of course, I leap for the rope, but there's nothing to tie it down to, and I have to watch that _kuspaa_ walk away with my partner." O'Toreguard hung her head, short hair flopping over her eyes.

"Sit down, officer," Aveskamp said, more kindly this time.   
"Yes, First Class." O'Toreguarde dragged the chair back out and took her seat.   
"We will get him back, I promise, but I need you to trust me and my methods. I need you to tell me more about him."  
"What's there left to tell?" she asked, shoulders slumped and staring at the table-top.  
"Think beyond the superficial," the elf said, reaching again for pencil and paper. O'Torguarde shifted, elbow propped on table, forehead propped on knuckles, and frowned.  
"He..." she paused. "He finds it hard to make friends."  
Aveskamp frowned. "Breakwood has loads of friends."  
O'Toreguard looked over, head swivelling on her hand. "No. He has loads of acquaintances. He's jovial enough, sure. Lots of folks like him and he's good at making them smile, but there's a lack of deeper connection. How many people d'you see in this room Crispin?"  
"There's no one but us because everyone else trusts us to do our job."  
"Fine. Tell me how many people looked genuinely concerned when I announced what'd happened?"  
"Well. I mean." Aveskamp paused, drumming a tattoo on the table with his pencil. "That's just. Hm." The elf stopped drumming. "I cede your point," he said, making a note. "What do you know about his home life then?"  
"Now, or earlier?"  
"Either."

Elowyn crossed her arms, now, leaning back in her chair, and crossed her legs too, giving Aveskamp a deadpan look. "Well. Currently, he lives in the Watch barracks with about twenty other officers, and rooms with an annoying short-arsed copper who makes his ungrateful ass coffee every morning, and a stack of paperwork as big as she is."  
"And who is- Oh." Avesamp paused mid-writing, to look up with an irked frown. "It's you. You're his room-mate." The elf sighed. "Don't try to be funny Elo, it doesn't suit you. Girlfriend?"  
"We're just Watch-partners! Nothing else."  
"I meant, does he have one?"  
"Oh. No. There's a couple of girls he likes and won't make a move on, a few he has interest in and has made a move on, and too many that's he's made a move on and then woken the next morning to find out he doesn't like them in the slightest."  
"And before?"  
Elo loosened her crossed arms a fraction, a troubled look crossing her face. "I..." She licked her lips and tilted her head, her eyes flicking between the senior officer and the wall to her right. "I think. Maybe. I think he had a wife," she said quietly. "Maybe a kid too."  
"What makes you say that?" Aveskamp asked, looking up from his writing.  
O'Toreguarde scrubbed her face, hand lingering over her mouth, as she uncrossed her legs and leant forward.  
"I don't know," she finally admitted. "You ever get a gut feeling about something? Yeah, well. It's just... how he acts. Y'know? Things he says, 'specially to kids in the street. The timing would fit too; he's, what, forty-three? That's more than old enough to have a kid and a wife before the Demon Wars started."  
Aveskamp gives her a long look, grunts and looks back to his writing.  
"Is any of this helping?" Elo asked, passing a hand over her face again.  
"Yes," Aveskamp told her, scribbling something else down. He looked up, shaking blond hair over one shoulder. "It gives me a better impression of the man I'm looking for."  
"I told you already; he ain't missing. He was taken," Elo said.   
"Sure, and this way I can guess what he's going to do about it."

Elo levels a flat look at Aveskamp. "You should have led with that, I could have saved us a lot of time. There's no need to guess, I can tell you what he'd do."  
"Oh? What's that then?"  
"The suspect was just a kid, not much older than me. Farren... he talks to people. Makes them like him. He would have tried to talk the perp down. Since they haven't come in, that's failed, so Farren would have made suggestions instead. Give the perp advice on how to effectively kidnap a cop."  
Aveskamp stopped writing and gave O'Toregurade a look that clearly said he thought that was a crock of shit.  
"My partner's no angel, Aveskamp. He did things during his undercover work he ain't proud of. One of those things was kidnapping a fellow cop; he knows how it's done."  
"I can buy that. What I can't buy is that he'd impart this knowledge to someone trying to kidnap _him_."  
O'Toreguarde looked at her hands. "That's cuz right now he ain't on his side, he's on the perp's side. He just wants them both to get out alive."  
"So where would they go?" Aveskamp asked, the end of his pencil sounding out a tattoo again in the silent room.  
O'Toreguarde frowned, glaring up at the corner of the ceiling like it had done something to personally offend her. "Couple of places," she said slowly. "There's an empty building just outside of Silver Hooks, up against the West wall. It's closest. Or there's a 'commune' around the back of Alliarien's chapel. It's quite close, and while there's a lot of people, they're more likely to protect the perp from Watchmen than question why he's gone one at dagger-point." O'Toreguarde rubbed her face and sighed. "Or there's about a hundred half-way empty warehouses between where he was taken and more populated streets. Gods..."  
"Elowyn," Aveskamp said, reaching out. "We'll get him back. D'you think he'd do anything to get himself hurt?"  
"No. Unless he told a joke."  
"Elo..."  
"I'm being serious! I've wanted to stab him plenty of times for poor jokes. The perp was on edge already, one badly timed hint of jocularity might push him over."  
"Elo."  
"Alright, fine. No, I don't think he would do anything to get himself hurt. Like I said, he'll talk the guy down as much as possible, be compliant and suggest ways of lying low."

Aveskamp finished scribbling something else in his notebook, then flipped it close. "Thank you Constable O'Toreguarde, I think I've got everything I need." The elf pushed back his chair, letting it scrape against the floor as he rose. He turned to walk to the door.  
"Crispin," O'Toreguarde said. "You better bring him home." The elder officer turned back to see O'Toreguarde giving him a look of such profound seriousness that he stopped and turned fully back to her. "If you lose him, I swear to Libra I will find a way to make your life hell for wasting my time here."  
Aveskamp tilted his head and frowned. "Why do you care so much?" he asked. "Watchmen come and go all the time."  
"This one's special."  
"Why?"  
O'Toreguarde visibly swallowed. "Because he's the first person who didn't expect me to be anything besides a watchman. He's the only person who's ever treated me like I'm my own person, not an extension of my Aunt. Had no preconceived notions of who I should be. Gods," she paused, briefly closed her eyes, and when she looked back at him, the elf saw they were damp. "I love Aunt Lex, I love my mother - don't get me wrong - but they both want me to be more like them in ways that don't work for me. Everyone in the station looks at me like all they see is my Aunt. Farren is the only one who looks past that, Farren is the only one who sees me, and only wants me to be the best Watchman I can. So I'm telling you - he's important - all six foot three inches, and 168 pounds of him. And if you don't bring him back, so help me, I will hold you personally accountable."  
Aveskamp quirked a smile. "Duly noted officer," was all he said before leaving the room.


End file.
